Long Beach Scramble Raises Questions
Written by Scott Keller · April 5, 2006
The countdown to the Champ Car World Series Presented By Bridgestone opener is on. However, there are still a lot of questions about the future of open wheel racing.
As a Champ Car fan, I am very excited about the first race of the season this weekend in Long Beach. I’m a new Californian, and this will only my second trip to Long Beach. With the excitement, however, comes a bit of worry about the future of open wheel racing in America. The buzz from the drivers is that they want a merger, because they see it as the only way to survive. On Monday Sebastian Bourdais spoke to the media and said,
“I think it’s not a matter of trying to make it happen, It’s do it or die.”
“He went on to say, “Both series are struggling so bad financially. The teams can’t put programs together and the drivers aren’t getting paid any more. I think it’s very straightforward. Either we succeed at this unification or we all are going to run out of jobs very soon.”
It is clear that finances are strained, and that teams just don’t have the resources they need. In fact, I haven’t been able to track down an entry list for Long Beach yet. Could it be that even at this late hour that a few teams and a bunch of drivers are still hunting for funding? This is an indicator of another difficult season for the lower half of the Champ Car teams, and also makes it difficult for fans to follow just who actually is racing in the series this year.
I am hoping that in 2007 or 2008 that we will see 28 or 30 cars on the grid at Long Beach, and that we can get past this feud that has gone on for too long.
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scott keller - i have never understod the split (irl,champcar) it would be a good thing if it had been done by business people. we need a professional open wheel ovel and road race series - if they both had paid attention to there own business and explaned to the fans that they wanted to make two series and provided the best racing possable - than at the end of the year had a shoot out at indy in sept - 12 of the best of both groups - identical cars - 200 laps on the oval - 200 laps on the road course - total points determins the winner - 1 million prize and i month test in fI -
The smart thing to do would be to unify, which has been said for about 500 times now.
I’ve talked to multiple people who are invovled in IRL and their opinion was to make IRL more of a roadcourse series. America has already spoken, when they want oval racing they turn on NASCAR, not the IRL.
Thanks for the comments. Yes, it has been said before, but the latest developments in both series really emphasizes that unification needs to happen soon. Thanks for reading.
Yes, its been said before ad infinitum but the current situations are exposed by this state of affairs regarding sponsorship or lack of. It’s obvious to everyone.
After many years of 1st listening to the 500 on the radio then watching it on TV, I went to Indy for the first time last weekend to watch qualifying. It was very impressive but they did not have 33 cars to fill the grid. I spoke with a fan who lives only a mile from the track and buys a 2 week pass for pre-race admission. It was the 1st time I heard the situation is so serious that the Indy 500 might not survive! People on both sides of the dispute need to put their egos aside and do what is best for open wheel racing. Some of the top open wheel drivers will not be in the 500 this year and the fans are the ones who lose because or it. The comment from Sebastian Bourdais is the clearest warning I have read.